Prall makes incredible' charges that cops sodomized him

By
Paul Mickle, The Trentonian

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

TRENTON — Suspected brother killer Tormu Prall said Tuesday that he was sodomized by three Trenton cops who told him to admit being there when the family home on Wayne Avenue went up in flames in 2007.

Prall also told Assistant Mercer County Prosecutor Lew Korngut he heard local gangsters fleeing from the house as the fire broke out at daybreak on Sept. 25, 2007. He said slain John Prall was targeted because he switched factions of the Bloods.

Testifying without the jury present, Prall spoke indignantly of being “sexually assaulted” while handcuffed after the cops transporting him pulled over somewhere between the Mercer County jail and city police headquarters, where he was headed for questioning.

Mercer Superior Court Judge Andrew Smithson rejected both Prall stories as made up and “incredible.” Prall made no mention, for instance, of having been “penetrated by something hard” for “11 minutes” when he talked to Detective Edgar Rios on video soon after it happened that day in October of 2008. Nor did he mention any gang connection to the case.

On Wednesday, the jury might see the hour-long video statement Prall made that day to Rios and a Mercer detective. In it, he admits to being at the family home on Wayne overlooking busy Calhoun Street when it burst into flames shortly before 6 that September morning.

Prall said his hands got burned seconds after he noticed fire in the second-floor hallway, went into his brother’s room to rescue him, picked up a small can of some kind of fuel from the floor and then bumped into the mother of his brother’s children, Jeneya Richardson. The fuel spilled on to his hands, Prall said, and as flames began to engulf his brother and the whole house, he ran for his life downstairs and out the back door.

The story does not jibe with what the jury has heard about the start of the blaze. John Prall girlfriend Kim Meadows said they were the only two people in the house when they went to bed late the night before — as well as when they awakened to flame and heat so high it melted off most of the victim’s skin.

Richardson could be called to testify again today. She testified last week that the fire occurred the morning after she and the children spent the evening on Wayne with John Prall. She left late the night of Sept. 24 and testified that she realized Kim Meadows might visit John after she left.

Despite charging cops with sodomy, Prall said he didn’t know their names and wouldn’t recognize them. He said he was taken from a Dodge Durango to a police wagon for the rape.

Prall also said he heard voices saying Blood gang oaths and “C’mon dogs!” as people ran out of the flaming home.

The suspect left the courtroom yesterday hollering out promises to take the stand and “crush” Korngut when he gets there.